“I understand that. The best way to fund my business, I’ve found, is to get a pound from everyone who thinks we will not have a grand prix here. I could fund Donington’s rebuild a thousand times over."

"The threat to depart and the FIA's stance that Ferrari is not that important are both charades. Yes, the sport would survive without Ferrari and Ferrari would survive without F1, but both would be poorer if that were the case. All the talk is therefore not to be taken too seriously."

20 comments on F1 links: More on the Ferrari feud

If Ferrari opts for the budget cap, how is it going to work with the annual $80 million that Ferrari is supposed to get?

BTW Do people that this whole budget cap idea is set up to make sure the teams don’t ask for more money from FOM? I know FIA doesn’t have anything to do with that directly, but obviously Mosley and Ecclestone are looking out for each other.

Hello there Keith, love the site, but I think you mean feud.
I’m a believer in budget capping, but not two-tier system as the grandest teams have too much interest in how the sport is now. Difficult one for the FIA to manage but by saying those who spend less will have more opportunity to develop and test the car is rather noble, I think, to encourage a better way forward. Not sure how they will pay for the unlimited testing though! Wasn’t that quite expensive?
I think a higher cap would be better but a one tier system so everyone knows the teams are working to the same set of rules.
I would hope the F1 business model is strong enough to give the teams the lions share of the budget they need to go racing, the rest be made up of private investment and sponsorship. What is the total revenue for F1 (circuit & TV fees etc), surely we the fans could distribute the money well enough and not make too much profit out of it?

FIA without ferrari is like Formula 1 without any European or American circuits – this is more like it, not like F1 without English GP, more than that. Mostly McLaran would also quit, after the genius Ron went off due to the bulying. I’d hate F1, not that I love it becoz of Ferrari in the first place (but I fell in love with it becoz of Ferrari, and Schumi).

I started watching F1 when Ferrari sucked and didn’t know the history, and was a little confused when MS went to that “crap team” as I though of them at the time. Ferrari has nice cars, did great with Brawn, but I would keep watching F1 without them. Homogenization is what I worry about, not one team leaving, no matter if it’s Ferrari or a real team like Williams ;)

F1 without Ferrari or for the likes of it possibly other big teams such as McLaren would be a very sad situation. F1 without a British GP is already looking very very sad. We must remember that all efforts from the FIA should be to make the sports more popular not unpopular.

How long will FOTA last at this rate? All the teams need to adopt the budget cap and get on with it and this includes Ferrari, I don’t understand what their problem is, do they doubt their engineers, and think the only way they can win is through vast expenditure?

Ferrari are on full tilt at the moment and it seems to me they need some fresh talent to get them out of their current posiition, (i include some PR advisors in that as well). Ferrari have deep history and have always seemed to be a team with pride, but its current incarnation seem to be too whingy, whiney for me.

Keith, I know that driver salaries are not included in the cap, but is the cap a starting figure, an investment figure or a total spend? IE can race winnings be spent as an additional spend? I am trying to do the maths, and if FOTA can get a higher figure from Bernie then this would make most teams quite profitable, and I think that may attract a different element of “Investors” to the sport.

I think that Ferrari is the most upset about the budget cap because their business model is very motorsports (Formula 1) centric, and this would interfere greatly. They would be as competitive as any other team under a budget cap, but they would have to SIGNIFICANTLY decrease the size of their F1 team, and shed maybe 3/4 of their headcount. And unlike BMW, Renault, or Toyota, those people couldnt as easily be absorbed into other parts of their (comparatively small)organization. Just a thought.

Well Hello – Here goes Max’s attempt to blow holes through the Fota group – the little teams without any F1 background/history they can put the boot in – and help Max the whipper in power – for a certain person’s sake – according to youre devinaty – dont fall for this ******** – it’s only short term and Ferrari are needed by F1 – only Bernie and Max are trying to devide and conquer as per usual

I dont think many people understand Ferrari’s dilemma. They simply wouldn’t be able to comply with this budget cap, as it is now. In the first place they would properly have fire about 500 employees or so, and the same properly goes for Mclaren, surely that can’t be good for the economy.
Ferrari and Mclaren also have a few established contracts with their sponsors that are already worth more then 40 million. What do they do with these contracts? Do they just break the contracts? What if the FIA again changes all their rules and regulations for 2011, and they again need the sponsorship money or the extra personnel that they had to fire?
And this also highlights the big problem with the FIA, they are just not very consistent, they have been changing the regulation way to often. It s also because of all these regulation changes year after year that the spending is so high in the first place, a perfect example of this would be KERS.

The FIA are really placing the big teams in an impossible situation, with the current commitments they have, it would be impossible for them to accept the budget cap. And if they are not part of the budget capped teams, they will be heavily restricted by all sorts of regulations and rules, which properly means they will not stand a fair chance against all the capped teams.
That would really be unfair if you consider that a team like Ferrari have always been there through the good and lean years, while new teams can enter and immediately again an unfair advantage over them. If Ferrari somehow manages to go for the budget option, are they then suppose to race with more standards parts?

I can easily understand why this system as it stands now could prompt Ferrari to just rather pack-up and leave.
It is easy to say that F1 wouldn’t miss Ferrari, but if you look at all the discussions and concern that was evoked when Honda decided to leave, then surely it wouldn’t be a good thing for F1 if another team decided to leave. The fact is, Honda didn’t even nearly have the same prestige, history or fans that Ferrari has. Ferrari properly still have the biggest fanbase or at least one of the biggest fanbases worldwide, and the the Ferrari brand is properly better known then the F1 brand itself worldwide. New teams like USGP, Lola or GP2 teams (with their low budgets and standard components) will not be able to replace a team like Ferrari. This also begs the question, why does these new teams need a budget cap, if they have 40 million to enter into the sport, then surely they can enter if they have the money? Does the FIA really have an obligation to secure immediate gratification for them?

Perhaps it is time for Ferrari to start building a Lemans car, I am sure the series would welcome a team like Ferrari with open arms, and at least Ferrari also have A1GP already.

I am sure there will be heavy discussions on the 6th of May, when FOTA will meet again.

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With regards to the driver salaries, they really can’t include them in the budget cap. F1 drivers will properly at average only spend about ten years racing in F1, so they proportionally only have a small amount of time to accumulate their life long earnings. It is a highly specialized job that they train for from very early on, so they are not really too well equipped for anything else.

I can see Ferrari have some problems here, but thats their mistake for putting all their eggs in the F1 basket and not really doing too much of other motorsports.
As I see it, there is no reason why a Ferrari-backed Arden team couldn’t become the ‘works’ F1 team, and at the same time Ferrari give more backing to Torro Rosso, and maybe bring back a Ferrari-engined Minardi team. That could keep the factory well employed during the race season.
Also, as Melanie says, its about time they took Le Mans and ALMS seriously again, and started building prototypes again. They do support the small GT teams around the world, and now have A1GP to look after as well, so its not as if everything depends on F1, no matter what Luca says.
McLaren and BMW are not quite in the same situation. Mercedes can scale down its involvement with McLaren, but increase its support for Force India and Brawn GP, I don’t see why that isn’t happening already. McLaren itself looks all set to re-enter the GT racing series, and will be making some exotic road cars too. BMW can revert back to being Sauber, and can maybe help iSport or another new team.
Whats all the fuss about FOTA? Grow up, make new connections and GET ON WITH IT!

I think Mosley’s comments that F1 can live without Ferrari were just him playing politics again.

If we were to take the comments seriously, then yes F1 could survive without Ferrari, it could even survive if all the current teams were replaced by completely new teams with no F1 history, F1 could also survive if it didn’t visit any of its traditional circuits or countries. It could survive all these things but it would loose a lot of popularity. The Formula 1 name will always attract some fans even if the only connection with the past is the name itself.

Ecclestone may not think much about keeping the traditional circuits, except Monaco, but he defiantly wants Ferrari in F1, why else would he pay them more than other teams just because of who they are.

I am not a Ferrari fan, but I admit that they are the most popular team in F1. Apart from cheering for the underdog such as Brawn GP this season the only teams I support regardless of drivers are Williams and McLaren, if they gave up racing I would still follow F1 but if a rival series was setup and I could only watch one series then my decision would largely based on which one my favourite teams and drivers were competing in.